Tony Awards Party at My Place, Yo! – Part 1

June 11, 2012

I don’t know if you’ve gotten the memo, but I’m a grown-up! Kind of. Not really.

But, I do have a grown-up’s apartment! I got the deal of the century on this place, and I adore it. When I moved in, after much talking back and forth, my roommate convinced me that we should get cable. (I try to be a cool, compromising person. Sometimes. And this was one of those times.)

So I’ve gotten a television, and gotten all spoiled. Since I am a total grown-up with posh amenities such as cable, I decided to have people over… you know, as grown-ups are wont to do.

The party was populated mainly by the theater-loving folks from my improv class. (And Josh (my friend from the Grand Canyon) spent his last night in town Tony-partying down with us.)

We had food, fun, and did the whole filling out of ballots thing. Amanda won first prize: a $15 Chipotle gift certificate. Her boyfriend, Pete, won 2nd: a coloring book. Jackie won third: a hug. (I would’ve held my own pretty well in this contest, but I was the host, so I precluded myself.)

We took this from the absolute worst angle to get any light on the faces of the winners of the Tony Prediction Pool.

I am so glad I found Amanda out here in LA. She adores theater as well, and knows more about it than I do. She’s hilariously funny, as well as a total sweetheart. We lived in the same area of Astoria at the same time back when we didn’t know each other! It’s as though we were meant to be friends.

Now that all the gushing and bragging about being a grown-up is over, let’s get into all the fun details of the show itself! What did I think of the actual telecast? Well, thank you for asking!

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First off, there was SO much singing and dancing! Goodness gracious. I’m not trying to hate on singing and dancing. I love singing and dancing. I’ve made it pretty clear on this blog that I am in awe on Jason Michael Snow. (So. talented. It. hurts.) I was of course incredibly happy to see his brilliance during the opening number.

Jared (who is no longer the understudy, but the full time Elder Cunningham!) also rocked it out in the opening number! (I’m ridiculously happy for him. It’s so nice to see his sweet excitement as a bunch of his dreams come true.)

On the subject of people for whom I’m ridiculously happy, 3 of my classmates from the Commercial Theatre Institute won Tonys last night! Amazing, right?

(I almost didn’t put that line in here, because I don’t want to sound as though I think I’m so cool ’cause I know a couple of people. I mean, we all know people. We’re all just 6 degrees separated from everybody else. Plus, it’s obvious that I’m not all that cool. I was in Los Angeles when the Tony Awards were happening, after all.)

Living in California is of course lame for a ton of reasons, but the one that jumps to mind when talking about the Tonys is not getting to see the show until 3 hours after everyone else.

Look at Jared with Neil Patrick Harris!

When ordering pizza for the party, I opened a new window on my computer. (Of course Playbill.com is my homepage.) Sure enough, there’s a banner across the top of Playbill’s website saying who won for best orchestration. I was doing my best to have a media blackout, but you can’t escape!

While I’m complaining, let’s jump back to this idea of SO much singing and dancing. If I want to go to a musical, I’ll go to a musical. If I want to see the culmination of people’s decades of hard work as they experience the moment they dreamed of as a child, I’ll watch an awards show. Please, please Tony Awards, I am begging you, pleading with you – stop giving so many Tonys outside of the telecast, only showing us snippets coming back from, or going into commercial.

Every single person who helped put on a show is important. If no one designed anything, and no one wrote anything, we wouldn’t have the shows we have. My high school teacher had to drill it into our brains a million times that truly, every person honestly did matter. You know one of the reasons it was so hard for high schoolers to believe that? Because things such as the Tonys relegate artists to the commercial breaks.

Not to stop mid-rant or anything, but I need to break this up into another post. So, buckle up for a rant continuation tomorrow!